News

Harvey's celebrating 25 years of good food

August 23, 2007 - Commercial Dispatch

When friends, family, and acquaintances visit, I always try to take them to Harvey's in downtown Columbus on the hill. Consistently good, reasonably priced and staffed with well-trained professionals, Harvey's continues to be one of the Golden Triangle's most enduring success stories.

I recently had a chance to sit down with Bobby Martin, kitchen manager of the Columbus Harvey's, and pick his brain. It was the perfect time to focus on this popular restaurant and reflect on some of my own experiences since this is their quarter-century birthday. Time does indeed fly when you're eating good food.

The secret of Harvey's success, said Martin, is making sure that the customers leave happy and taking care of our employees.

The beginnings
Harvey's actually began in Starkville in 1982. It was more of a bar that served food. A few years later, the Columbus site opened and quickly became known as a full-service casual-dining restaurant with a bar.

John Bean and his mother, Myrrl, opened these establishments after Mr. Bean had died in the late '70s. Harvey's was named after a friend of the family, Harvey Seifert, a successful businessman with ties at Johnston-Tombigbee. John's brother, Bernard, was still in high school at the time but started working with the group later after he graduated.

Harvey's is part of a larger story. The Columbus-based Eat With Us group of restaurants (10-plus restaurants in three states) includes the Sweet Peppers chain with new stores opening all the time. The stores in Corinth and in Cullman, Ala., for example, now serve thousands of customers, and it all began in the early '80s in Starkville. That restaurant is where Martin began his career as a cook.

Other restaurants in the group, or associated with it, include the Cotton District Grill in Starkville, The Grill at Jackson Square in Columbus, Park Heights in Tupelo and the Bulldog Deli in Starkville.

Plans are being made as I write this for openings in Gulf Shores, Madison, Fair Park Grill in Tupelo, and another in a suburb of Charlotte, N.C. Who would have known 25 years ago that this would be happening?

I can't believe that it's been 25 years since they opened, said Pam Adair of Ft. Worth, Texas. I remember when it opened. We were there, living in Columbus before we moved out here to Texas.

To celebrate Harvey's 25-year anniversary, each of the three restaurants (Tupelo, Starkville and Columbus) will give away free meals for two for a year. The drawing will be held in September, conducted by an objective data-analyzing company. You can register on-site at any of the three Harvey's locations, or on-line at www.eatwithus.com.

Harvey's has an excellent training program, said Martin. Each of the servers has to pass multiple tests before he or she receives a section. They also have to let management know whenever there is a problem such as a customer complaint.

Customer service We also do other things for our customers, Martin said. We offer new home owners free goodies. Customers who fill out comment cards receive a coupon on his/her birthday and/or anniversary for a free appetizer or dessert.

Our to-go service is booming, he said. Huge orders regularly go to Eurocopter, SeverCorr.

Curbside service gives customers yet another option. Nice to know that you can go pick up wings, burgers or complete meals after mowing the lawn and never having to leave your car ... or take a shower.

Martin told me that nothing happens by accident at Harvey's.

We even have a protocol for customers with allergies. ... We are proud of the way in which our management staff interacts with the customers, said Martin.

The staff at Harvey's includes a management team of six, 35 servers, 13 cooks, four dishwashers and four hostesses. Some of the team, such as Pat Donohue, have been with the company for more than 15 years. He has worked in almost every capacity and most assuredly understands what makes a superb restaurant.

In May of this year the Eat With Us group added Gregg Frazer as corporate chef. Frazer moved here from San Diego with 14-plus years of culinary experience. His credentials are impressive, having worked at the Four Seasons Hotel in West Palm Beach, Fla.; as a private chef in Hawaii, in Sydney, Australia and for Royal Caribbean cruise lines.

On June 3, Chef Bill Mullins and Chef Greg and others from the staff won first place in the categories originality, taste and presentation at the Chefs of Mississippi Awards competition. Judges in the competition included Iron Chef's Cat Cora, a Jackson native.

Staying power
One employee, Maddie Wilkins, helped open up with the Beans in the early '80s, said Martin. She is still with us. Another employee has been with us for 15 years. Such staying power says something about us.

Another person who helps make Harvey's work like a well-oiled machine is Clara Hicks, who has been in the Columbus location for 21 years.

I cook and do a lot of the prepping Clara said. What I like best is the bread pudding.

I saw Clara preparing a colossal pan of this taste-bud tickling concoction which looked good enough to eat before she popped it into the oven. I wanted to stick my fingers in it and grab a taste. Mmmmm.

Sallie Simpson, Carmelia Collins, and countless others in the background help make Harvey's what it is. Although they are never seen by the customers, without them, there would be nothing to eat.

I know from years of personal experience that no matter what your appetite may be, there is something there that will satisfy.

Many times my friends and I meet there in the late afternoon to enjoy some appetizers. We often choose this option rather than a full meal. The sauted and fried mushrooms, fried cheese sticks, broccoli bites, spinach artichoke dip, barbecued wings and crab cakes provide enough different tastes and textures to please everyone in our party.

If, however, you are ravenous, you can order a complete meal, including hand-carved steaks such as the New York strip or filet mignon; chicken dishes such as tenders or lemon-pepper; pasta entrees such as a New Orleans seafood pasta or fettuccine romano, and talk about fresh fish! Harvey's prepares fish (grouper, orange roughy, amberjack, sea bass, whatever is fresh) like no one else.

Harvey's also has a very nice bar, which offers every type of drink imaginable. You may order your meal from the bar and eat in one of the several booths that are comfortable and more private than in the main part of the restaurant. There is a Happy Hour during the weekdays, the perfect place for winding down after a hard day's work.

John Hudson, who recently received a promotion, manages this area.

Planning the specials
Martin likes to cook, and although he is not a trained chef, he gets to plan specials at Harvey's. One of them was a mesquite grilled pizza with blackened shrimp. The dough is baked with a spinach/artichoke sauce along with four cheeses.

There's occasionally a feta pasta with eggplant, crawfish and New Orleans cream sauce, roasted red peppers and scallions. Another mouth-watering special is barbecued shrimp sauted, and served with toasted corn with rosemary cornbread, a nice autumn combination.

Or how about a grilled pork chop with apples and cinnamon? Martin and others on the planning staff seem to have a flair for creating just the right combinations of tastes and textures.

The menu is never dull, said one customer. I like the specials,she said because they usually make me want to try dishes like that at home. But I'd rather just come to Harvey's and eat them here

We try to be seasonal. Summer means fresh produce so we have more vegetable dishes. Summer time means more sweet tea, which almost everyone in the South enjoys.

We try to help our servers remember that in summer they should be ready for the customers asking for more tea. Little things like that make the customers happy.

All soups are made from scratch in-house at Harvey's. (My favorite is the crawfish bisque that's served on Fridays.)

Whether you want a good old-fashioned thick hamburger (the Down Home burger) or a steak, chicken, pasta or a specialty salad, Harvey's has got you covered. They have withstood the test of time and know how to please.

Hours of operation in Columbus are Monday-Thursday, 11 a.m.-9 p.m. and Friday and Saturday, 11 a.m.-10 p.m. They are located on the hill going into Columbus from the Highway 82 bypass. It is the first building on the right that you see when coming into downtown.

Happy Birthday, Harvey's. Here's to 25 more years.

By John Dorroh

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